Personal information management (PIM) applications are known. These are applications typically executed on a computing device such as a smartphone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer or a tablet computer. Various examples of PIM applications are described below.
PIM applications may include calendar applications used to store, and provide access to, calendar entries, for example in date/time order or according to some other user-defined sort order. The calendar entries are stored as calendar workspace items which typically include calendar item details such as subject, start date/time, end date/time, and an attendee list identifying participants in a meeting which is included as a calendar entry.
PIM applications may include contact management applications (otherwise known simply as “contacts” applications) used to store, and provide access to, contact items for individual contacts and business contacts, for example in alphabetical order or according to some other user-defined sort order. The contact items are stored as contact management workspace items which typically include contact details such as full name, email address, telephone numbers, and postal addresses. Telephone numbers stored in the contact items are typically used to initiate telephone calls and/or to identify details of an incoming telephone call—for example, a telephony application may look up the full name of the contact corresponding to the telephone number associated with an incoming telephone call, and present that to the call recipient along with an alert notification (e.g. an audible alert for the call). The contact items may also include a personalised alert setting which a telephony application may look up to provide an individualised alert notification for an incoming call from that particular contact.
PIM applications may include call history applications used to store, and provide access to, call history lists, for example in date/time order or according to some other user-defined sort order. The call history lists are stored as telephony workspace items which typically include call history details such as telephone numbers for previous call attempts, previously made calls and/or previously received telephone calls.
PIM applications may include messaging applications used to store, and provide access to, message items, for example in date/time order or according to some other user-defined sort order. The message items are stored as message workspace items which typically include message item details such as subject, message date/time, a message recipient list identifying recipients of a message which is included as a message item, and message content. An example of a PIM messaging application is an email application which is used to store, and provide access to, email messages, for example in date/time order or some other order defined by the user. Other examples include text messaging applications for storing and providing access to short messaging services (SMS) messages and/or multimedia messaging services (MMS) messages.
PIM applications may include task list applications used to store, and provide access to, personal task items for example in date/time order or according to some other user-defined sort order. The task items are stored as task list workspace items which typically include task details such as subject, start date/time, due date/time, and a flag identifying whether the task has been completed.
Various methods for processing data relating to calendar entries are known. For example, meeting invitations sent by email may be used by a computing device, upon acceptance by a user, to insert calendar entries into a set of calendar workspace items. Meeting updates may also be sent by email which may be used by a computing device to update existing calendar entries in a set of calendar workspace items.
The present invention aims to improve the processing of data in relation to calendar entries.